Why the Hearn?
Reflecting Toronto’s rich cultural palette, this year’s Luminato Festival is promoting a theme of diversity and openness. Serving both as a window into Toronto’s industrial past and a snapshot of the city’s cultural present, the vast space of the Hearn allows for what will be the world’s largest temporary community and cultural centre.
For this year’s festival, the massive metal megalith will feature theatres, art galleries and art installations, alongside several restaurants and bars. There will also be multiple music stages for the much-anticipated “Unsound Toronto,” back at the Hearn for a second year for its fusion of soundscape and musical technology.
What to Do
From a collection of Toronto treasures, to a traditional German biergarten, to tours of the Hearn itself, there is something for everyone at the 2016 Luminato Festival. Whether you are with friends, parents, children or your significant other, this year’s rich lineup yields a whole itinerary of possibilities.
For the art lover: check out some of this year’s popup galleries and art installations, in particular, “Trove: A View of Toronto in 50 of its Treasures,” a special 10-year-anniversary project featuring a range of cultural artifacts collected from around the city. Many will surprise you. For a more interactive art experience, try your hand at “Situation Rooms,” an award-winning multiplayer video display highlighting the effects of war and the arms industry.
For the music connoisseur: from LGBTQ hip-hop to Baroque pastorale, the Luminato Festival offers a full range of diverse melodic programming. For two nights, on June 10 and 11, the Hearn is playing host to “Unsound Toronto,” Toronto’s version of the famous Polish showcase of musical technology. During the day, come and relax to various laid-back musical programming, from the refined precision of Toronto’s own Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra to Canadian Kid Koala’s chill “Music to Draw To” DJ set.
For the theatre buff: nestled amongst the Hearn’s endless metal maze of steel girders, the main 1,200-seat theatre is an experience in itself. Amongst other theatrical programing, this year’s festival is running “The James Plays,” the epic trilogy telling the stories of three generations of 15th Century Scottish kings.
For everyone else: while the main show of the festival rages in the foreground, take advantage of the beautiful uniqueness of the Hearn venue. Tours of the former power plant will take place throughout the festival.
About the Festival
Luminato Festival is Toronto’s global multi-arts festival dedicated to performance, visual art, music, theatre, dance, magic and more. In 2016, the Festival marks its 10th anniversary from June 10 to 26 with a free and ticketed program of local and international artists delivering adventurous art in adventurous places.
In its first decade, Luminato has become one of the preeminent arts festivals in North America, having commissioned close to 100 new works of art, with more than 3,000 performances featuring 11,000 artists from over 40 countries. This June, as part of its first-ever residency, Luminato will temporarily transform the Hearn Generating Station, an epic decommissioned power plant and one of Canada’s majestic industrial landmarks, into the world’s largest multi-arts centre under one roof with a theatre, a music stage, a site-specific performance space, restaurants, bars and more. #TurnOnTheHearn
Curated by Artistic Director Jorn Weisbrodt and led by CEO Anthony Sargent, Luminato Festival is a charitable, not-for-profit, cultural organization. Luminato Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous support and the vision of its Founding Luminaries, SuperNova donors, Patron Circle Members and Foundations. Luminato Festival proudly acknowledges the support of Founding Government Partner the Province of Ontario, the Government of Canada, City of Toronto, Ontario Arts Council, CIBC and L’Oréal Canada.
In 2003, Tony Gagliano and David Pecaut met for the first time over lunch at Grano restaurant. Over calamari, pasta, and wine, the two passionate city-builders found their mutual beliefs in the transformative power of the arts, and thus, Luminato was born. As we arrive at our tenth anniversary, we take a look back at some of Luminato’s milestones.
Vision: David Pecaut’s Dream
“Luminato began as a dream that each year Toronto would invite the world to join us in celebrating creativity. A dream where the best artists in the world and the best artists in Canada fill the stage that is Toronto with new and wonderful creations. A dream that we could create in Toronto a festival that would become renowned the world over for its excellence, its originality and its accessibility to all people regardless of background or experience.
Today that dream has become the reality of a boisterous festival sprawling all over the city with music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literature, film and celebrations of all kinds. Luminato embraces the very diversity that is the beating heart of Toronto and is living testimony that creativity is best nourished where cultures come together in a spirit of common humanity and citizenship.
One can note the artistic and economic impact of Luminato, but its core purpose is something larger: Luminato is a hugely personal and collective enterprise. In a digital age, a festival like this is one dimension of human activity that must still be experienced in person. It is a shared spectacle. Luminato’s roots go back to our earliest cultural experiences before we even lived in cities and practised formal arts. At its core Luminato is about the creativity in each one of us.
We know that each and every child is fundamentally a creative being. Over our lives, some of that creativity is lost. Luminato is a time, a place and a set of experiences where each of us can reconnect with the creative in ourselves. The dream of Luminato, a dream we can all dedicate ourselves to this week, is that each of us can discover and share our innate creativity. And in doing so, connect with one another as a community in the most powerful way we know.”
— David Pecaut (June 2009)
The Founding Luminaries
From the very beginning, donors have been at the heart of Luminato. Among the first to stand behind the Festival were the Founding Luminaries: art patrons and civic builders who share the vision of making Luminato one of the most important annual multi-arts festivals on the world stage.
Endlessly Inventive for the Wildly Curious…
